The original Star Trek TV series came on when I was in college. It was on a Friday night, as I recall, and I didn’t see much of it. It was only in reruns several years later that I caught most of the episodes. I’ve always liked science fiction novels and movies, and I became a fan of Star Trek’s thoughtful stories, complemented by its hopefulness and hokeyness. You could always tell that the boulders on alien planets were paper Mache and that creatures from other worlds were, oddly, shaped like men in costumes. And they all spoke English! Unless my TV was equipped with a decoder I didn’t know about.

Further, if a guest actor portrayed a crewmember, you knew he was going to buy the farm when Captain Kirk and his subordinates ventured to the surface of an alien planet. Interestingly, no one needed an oxygen mask. “Boldly going where no one has gone before…” apparently included only planets with earth-like atmosphere.

Some old-line trekkies are upset that the newest movie casts young actors in the roles of Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy and Sulu. I’m not. If the story is good, I’ll like the movie. I don’t know Chris Pine (Spock) or Zachary Quinto (Spock). That continues a trend: I had never heard of William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy or the other actors when the first Star Trek beamed into our TV sets in the 60s.

Live long and prosper!

Guy Johnson